


On eggshells

by JaqofSpades



Category: Glee
Genre: Community: wishlist_fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:51:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tugs a single strand free and strokes it smooth, fingers drifting over her shoulder and halfway down her arm before he's done.  Rachel forgets to breathe, in that moment. Forgets everything, then finds herself agreeing to let him wash her hair.  Anything to break the hush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On eggshells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/gifts).



> A/n: Written for wishlist_fic to arichey's prompt 'Puck washes Rachel's hair'. Fill-in-the-gaps fic set during “Funk” (1 x 22).

Rachel watches the muscle twitch in Puck's jaw, and the imminence of violence pulls her out of her egg-induced stupor. “Take me home,” she blurts, and the demand drags his murderous gaze away from Jesse, currently beating a fast retreat. 

Puck's fists unclench and his eyes soften as they move over her, and she knows how she must look, egg yolk and albumen and broken shell in her hair and on her skin and staining her clothes. She refuses to cry, she refuses … but the tiny souls are fluttering against her skin, the unborn chickens screaming and squalling inside her head. 

She begins to shake, and the tears come, even though Rachel Berry most definitely does not cry in public, not when she actually means it. But Puck's the only one here now, she tells herself. It's just them and he'll take her home soon - she can afford this moment of weakness. A few tears a breakdown does not make, and his arms are warm around her, and right now she needs that. 

When her sobs turn into sniffles, and her sniffles into embarrassing hiccups, he rubs her back to signal he's letting go, then guides her to his truck. He swings her up without the usual attempt to slide an errant hand up the back of her thigh. It's because I'm covered in raw egg, she thinks, and her lower lip begins to wobble again before she can get it under control. Also, jeans, her subconscious points out drily.

“I'll get egg on your seat,” she says after they've been driving for a few minutes. Her vocal cords, it seems, have emerged unscathed from the trauma.

He lifts his massive shoulders in a careless shrug, and his mouth twists into that embarrassed half smile he adopts when he's caught being a good guy. Only Puck, she finds herself thinking, would be embarrassed by his own chivalry. Her reluctant knight, she thinks fondly, then blushes. He's not hers. That may well be part of the problem.

She remembers Jesse's face, tight with rage after Puck's beautiful arms stole the spotlight in Run Joey Run. He hadn't been worried about Finn, now she thinks about it. It'd been Puck this, Puck that … as if the only thing that mattered was the fact that someone else looked better in a leather jacket than Jesse did. And out of a leather jacket too, she thinks uncharitably. Sprawled on her bed ...

Rachel swallows a little, and tries to concentrate on the albumen, crusting on her skin. Her eyes fall on a smear of yolk across her lap, already drying to an orange smear on the denim. She mumbles a prayer for the souls of the little chickens, and tries to find the lesson in all of this. Stick with your own kind, she can't help thinking, her eyes returning to Puck's profile as he stares out the windshield.

“Thought you were done with that Jesse douchebag anyway,” he says abruptly, and there's an odd tone to his voice; anger, yes, but something else too. Normally, she'd listen carefully and ask a few pointed questions to get to bottom of the conundrum, but not today. Today she is feeling sad and violated and tiptoeing around someone else's delicate emotions is beyond her.

“Please hurry up, Noah. I need to shower.”

He smirks to himself – she refuses to countenance it – and stomps on the pedal to push the old truck up past the speed limit.

She's expecting some sleazy crack about him wanting to wash her back when he surprises her, voice soft with compassion.

“I'm gonna need to help you get that shit out of your hair. It's all tangled in back,” he offers, one hand leaving the steering wheel to pluck a few pieces of eggshell free of the sodden mass. He tugs a single strand free and strokes it smooth, fingers drifting over her shoulder and halfway down her arm before he's done. Rachel forgets to breathe, in that moment. Forgets everything, then finds herself agreeing to let him wash her hair. Anything to break the hush. 

His touch is so gentle, she thinks. Perhaps all her bad decisions can be traced back to that. Crude, brutish Puck touches her like she's made of spun gold, and it makes her want to trust him.

(Makes her want other things, too, but it's better not to think about those.)

*

She turns the water right up, the pressure buffeting her as she stands underneath and sobs. The way he looks at her when she emerges from the bathroom tells her it was pointless. He heard anyway.

“I'll slash his tyres,” he growls, leaping up from his careless sprawl on her bed. “Leave him a deposit on his fucking doorstep,” he says, pacing wildly. “Break both of his legs. Like to see him dance then,” he threatens, shooting her a wary glance. Rachel sighs. He's obviously waiting for her to jump in and tell him off.

She should. One does not make light of a performer's obligations. But she can still feel the sting of eggshell biting into her skin, and finds herself wondering how serious Puck is. How far he is willing to go. (For her.)

Too far, she realises with a shudder. Puck doesn't deserve to be used like that. Her former bully has become her truest ally - the first to offer help, the only voice that ever speaks up to defend her. Trying to keep him out of trouble is the least she can do.

“I don't want you involved in this,” she says curtly, and his jaw clenches. She sighs – he would take it as a slight, her wanting to protect him - but they don't talk about it, their strange not-relationship, so she can't explain why.

“We, Noah, are going to be the better people. Though I will be praying for karma to intervene violently at some point in the near future,” she says lightly. “Now. My hair. I was thinking I could wear my swimsuit in the shower, and you could try and stand out of the way of the water?”

“Make it a bikini and you're on, Berry,” he leers, and she doesn't even bother to roll her eyes, because, really Noah. So easy.

She'd been planning on wearing her new white bikini anyway.

*

He insists on fishing out the fragments of shell by hand, using his long fingers to rake through the waist-length strands inch by painstaking inch. By the time he declares her hair eggshell-free, her legs are weak and trembling, and her fantasies running amok. And then he starts to massage her scalp, shampooing, then rinsing, then shampooing, and rinsing again, so slowly and carefully she wants to cry. (And touch him. Something more than the sly, supposedly innocent touches they've both been sneaking in all along.)

The hot water is beginning run out when he abandons any pretence of washing her hair, and settles in to play with it, wrapping it around his hands, stroking it smooth, even attempting to braid a few strands. He's procrastinating, she thinks, and she tries to beat it down, the outrageous idea that has been teasing her from the minute they stepped in here.

“Shit Rach, I had no idea your hair was so long,” he says eventually, and Rachel heaves a silent sigh, knowing it's time to get out. Something inside of her is protesting that idea, demanding she does something to make him stay. 

“It's the curl – makes it pull up. It's pretty long all wet,” she explains, and then flushes. “Sorry – I know it's a pain to wash.”

“Don't mind.” He pauses for a moment, and she waits, wondering what she's going to do if he goes there. 

“It's fucking sexy,” he admits. She's hardly surprised - his sodden jeans are struggling to hide the erection they've both been ignoring for the better part of twenty minutes – but they had agreed not to do this. For both of their sakes.

But she's struggling not move back against him, and push her body into his, and take what he so clearly wants to offer. It wouldn't be fair, she tells herself. He's not her leading man, and isn't prepared to be. It would be just another way of using him.

But his fingers have been in her hair and on her scalp and sliding down her back to part the long strands and on her shoulders to turn her into the water to rinse, and oh God, right around her when he adjusted the faucet to cool the water a little so she could rinse her face. Her blood is boiling, and her breath is coming in sharp little pants that she suspects are giving her away.

“Oh,” is all she can say, but her body has its own tale to tell, the blush blooming everywhere at once. She knows exactly where he's looking when he steps in behind her, and can't help but look down herself - her dark olive skin is suddenly so very, very pink, and nowhere more so than where she's spilling out of the cups of the tiny white bikini. 

Puck makes a hoarse sound of approval in the back of his throat, and he steps forward until her back is glued to the delicious contours of his chest. She turns her head a little, and her nose nudges the cold metal of his nipple ring, and he's so close she can feel his reaction – the sudden intake of breath, and the long, delicious shudder that follows. The way he needs to move in his jeans, and just the thought of it makes her nipples rise into hard, aching peaks, clearly visible under the wet cloth.

His groan echoes in the enclosed space, and his hands fist in her hair. He's not being gentle, now, but she can't find it in herself to care. All those silly little plans, silly little ideas about life and love and sex … they're evaporating in the face of him, hot against her back as they stand under the cool shower.

She doesn't even bother to hide her shudder when he yanks her hair aside to whisper into her ear.

“You know what you need to forget about all this, Rach?”

She shouldn't ask. She knows the answer already, and likes the idea far too much.

“What?” she breathes, and he moves even closer, practically pressing her up against the wall. His free hand creeps around her hip, thumb caressing the bone there, and fingers drawing tiny circles on the skin of her belly just above her bikini bottoms.

“A good orgasm.”

Saying anything seems wildly inadvisable, given that a) she might beg him not to stop, or b) he might take his hand away. So she simply blushes, and stays very still, praying.

She should have known prayer wasn't advisable with the devil himself.

“Rach?”

Her moan is shockingly loud in the confines of the shower cubicle, and if the wanton circle of her hips isn't a sufficiently clear invitation, the babble of words that rushes past her lips certainly is.

“Oh yes. Please, Puck, please!” she begs, her own hand falling over his to inch it down a little further, to the point where his long fingers have the opportunity to slide under the edge of her bikini.

“You sure?” he pants, and she nods furiously, gnawing at her lip as need claims her.

Her hips twitch helplessly as he slides his hand into her bikini bottoms, one finger tracing up and down her slit while the others cup her gently. She moans, and he laughs into her neck, licking and sucking at the skin there, marking her.

“Open your legs a little,” he instructs, and she widens her stance, then nearly clamps them back together when his fingers slip inside, all four of them sliding in her wetness with shocking ease. She knows the mechanics – she's known for years – but it's one thing to know all the names and locations, and another to feel a boy's fingers learning those same contours.

“Gonna let me fuck you with my fingers, Rach?” he asks hoarsely, and she glances up in confusion, because surely he is already?

“I could make you come just like this,” he explains quietly, nudging playfully at her clit, “or ...” he tickles her a little, drawing circles around her entrance, and his meaning is suddenly clear.

“Oh,” she gasps, and the way her hips are moving seems set to make the decision for her. She bites down hard on her lip, because it feels so good, but … she doesn't want to be just another of McKinley's technical virgins.

“'S okay, babe. We don't have to. Lotsa ways to make it good,” Puck whispers, keeping his touch shallow and slow. “Relax, babe. Just want you to relax,” he whispers, running his tongue up the curve of her neck, and using his other hand to stroke her belly soothingly.

Her consciousness, however, has shrunk to the lazy movements of his fingers, big circles, little circles, slow and then fast, and then occasionally, inching higher to nudge at her clit. She gasps, at first, and he shies away, returning to drifting his fingers everywhere but there. Then the broad circles shrink to small ones, and his thumb nudges her once, twice, three times, making her groan and twitch. 

“Oh! Please Puck, there … stay there!”

He laughs into her neck. “Gotta trust me, Rach. We're going slow.”

“I don't want slow,” she wails, reaching up to slide her pinky into his nipple ring. “Please!” she demands with a tiny tug.

He lets out a strangled yell, then pushes her forward into the wall, crushing her with the weight of his body.

“Rach – you gotta behave. I'm horny as fuck and I'm hard as friggin' rock and I'm trying to be a good guy here. So unless you wanna forget all about being a virgin, we're gonna go slow. And ya gotta let go of me. Before ...” his voice trails off, and she's left wondering what he would do. And how much she would like it.

“What?” And is that seductive, teasing voice really hers?

He moves his hips in a slow circle against her lower back, and she can feel the pressure behind the wet denim.

“Before I take these fuckin' things off and bend you over and slide right in, Berry. And you'd like it, too. You'd beg me to fuck you, which is why we ain't doing it, Rach.”

She turned her head to look at him, then, stung by the bitterness in his voice. “Why? Why not?”

He looked away, easing his body backwards to let her turn around. She reaches up to cup his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Noah?”

“Couldn't bear it if you regretted it,” he mumbles, meeting her eyes reluctantly. “Know you're saving it for Finn or some shit.”

“I'll have you know, Noah Puckerman, that I'm saving it for myself! Nothing to do with Finn,” Rachel says sharply. She drags in a deep breath, then shares her biggest secret. “There's only been one boy I've ever wanted to do that with, and it wasn't Finn, or even Jesse.”

His blank look is infuriating.

“You, numbskull! You're the only one I was ever even tempted by! Why do you think we keep ending up like this?”

His mouth is hanging open, but he recovers quickly. “Never quite like this, Rach.”

“No. Maybe not. But I always knew it was coming. I just thought I might be able to hold out a little longer. Graduate high school first, perhaps. At least make Senior year!”

He laughs at her peeved tone and gathers her close. “We don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Ever,” he stresses, dropping a kiss in her hair.

Noah, she thinks, as she stares up at him, stretching onto her toes to bring her lips to his. My Noah, she purrs as he strokes her tongue with his own, then presses him back against the wall to deepen the kiss.

Mine, she decides as she undoes the button at his waist, and unzips the fly.

He looks down in surprise and she smiles up innocently, all the while trying to manoeuvre his sodden jeans down over his legs.

“The problem's not with the wanting,” she confesses as his jeans finally hit the floor of shower cubicle. One wondering hand is reaching out to stroke him as she ponders the issue.

“It's more about … being me. Being different, I guess. Not like all the other girls.” 

She reaches out, and wraps her hand around him before sinking slowly to her knees in front of him.

“But maybe this is nobody's business but our own. And if we can keep it that way …” her tongue darts out, curious about taste and texture. His groan reverberates throughout his body, tangible under her fingers, and she smiles, knowing the rest of her sentence is unnecessary.

Puck is putty in her hands, and she's through being too scared to play with him.

*

“Not here,” he pants, lifting his head from between her legs. She's come twice – he insisted on at least one orgasm before she left the shower – and yes, she's at the begging stage.

“You promised!”

“Yeah, but your first time should be in a bed. With a condom,” he points out practically.

She throws the soap at him, and turns to face the wall, bracing herself with her arms, and bending at the waist. Slowly.

“Puckerman. I'm on the pill. I know you get checked. Please.” She looks back over her shoulder, and it's only when their eyes meet that he moves towards her, gripping her hips loosely and nudging her gently with his … cock, she thinks, biting her lip.

Puck's cock.

Oh God, his _huge_ cock, pushing inside of her, breaking her in half …

Withdrawing, and sliding, and it feels … nice. He inches back inside again, and her inner muscles clench suddenly, making them both jump with surprise.

“Rachel!” he moans, and suddenly pushes his way all the way in, and she can feel him everywhere, every cell of her body, totally full of him. Totally his, she thinks as her mouth opens to say … nothing. All she can do is hum, little broken sounds joined together by long, noisy exhalations of pleasure.

Until she's screaming, that is.

The power of her lungs nearly deafens them both in the enclosed space, but there's no way they're about to stop.

“Bed?” he asks, smirking.

“Only if you promise not to say I told you so. And do that again.”

“My bitch is bossy! I like it.”

“Shut it, Puckerman.”

*

They've got ten minutes before they need to head back for Glee, but this conversation needs to be had.

Rachel lifts her head from his shoulder, and leans away from him a little to give her sternest look the gravitas it deserves. 

“No deposits, no property damage, no broken legs. But ...” Rachel draws in a breath and savours it, this moment when she's poised to leap, to plunge into that place of darkness and no coming back.

“I hate those cars they drive. I _hate_ them,” she hisses, fingers digging tight into his biceps with her vehemence. He nods, then kisses her hard, and she thinks _fuck_ the rest of Glee - she and Puck are the real team. Look out Vocal Adrenaline. Look out McKinley High.

Rachel Berry is done walking on eggshells.

_fin_

 

Disclaimer: This fanfiction was written for personal enjoyment rather than profit. No infringement on the rights of the intellectual property owners is intended.


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